Commitment: The Art of Making a Relationship Real - Psychology Today

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About a month ago, Mr. Lauren married his longtime girlfriend and moved into her apartment. That’s when his nail-biting resumed. During their engagement, it had pretty much been under control, even though he hated all the planning, rehearsals, and considerable expense that they’d agreed to share. “I would have gone to City Hall,” he said, “but Harriet wanted everybody.” So, I wondered why, if he had survived all that stress with his nails intact, he started biting them again once he settled down. It sounded counterintuitive.

But it wasn’t. In Mr. Lauren’s frame of reference, nail-biting was associated with his mother’s domination, and his self-conscious inability to effectively resist. Transposed to today—that is, to his life as a married guy—nail-biting reflected his discomfit with diminished independence. He’d have to satisfy someone else, at least sometimes. He’d have to act like he was committed. So, the real issue, it seemed, was not how he could stop biting his nails but how he could adjust to—and accept—the give-and-take of a long-term commitment.

Mr. Lauren acknowledged that it had occurred to him.

The habit began when he was about six years old. His mother would drag him to get manicures every week or so, and he’d be hugely embarrassed. “I’d be the only male, the only kid there; it was all a bunch of women with their heads under the dryer, and I felt like an idiot.” His mother, however, insisted that he go. She called it “grooming,” the same word for when they took the dog to get its nails clipped and its hair trimmed. “Can you imagine how I felt?” he asked. He’d plead with her, offer all kinds of bargains, but she insisted.

As a form of rebellion, Mr. Lauren started biting his nails. At first, it was conscious, a way of spiting his mother; she couldn’t make him get manicured if he had no nails. But then . . . the practice became a habit. His mother fumed. He actually hated how his nails got unsightly. But his anger was so real, his reaction so intense, that he couldn’t stop. Whenever he felt someone on his case, encroaching on his freedom, he’d lose control. “I knew it was ugly and unsanitary, but it made me feel I was in charge again;I got this kick from the pain.” I could see the direction of his rationale. I could see, moreover, how Harriet seemed like a threat.

Even before Harriet, he’d bite his nails when another person seemed to put pressure on him. Even if they only might pressure him, he’d bite his nails. In college, he’d bite his nails when he had to give a presentation, say, in an English class. He thought of joining the debate society, but declined because he understood the intense preparation required by the coach. “There were stories about Professor Murphy, and how he made you rattle off statistics and dates, and I just couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face how I’d mutilate myself.”

The term was chilling and suggested that Mr. Lauren would first anticipate a difficult situation and then allow himself two choices: flight on the one hand, biting his nails on the other. Since he couldn’t flee Harriet the way he could Dr. Murphy, he’d bite his nails as a way to forestall the control that she might exert. He projected onto Hariet his own problems with self-control.

So, we talked about how he might short-circuit his response. After all, Harriet wasn’t actually a controlling woman. She had wanted a big wedding but, once they were married, they’d had no fights over how they ought to live. She was actually solicitous and anxious to work things out to their mutual satisfaction. It was just that Mr. Lauren felt scared that he might be boxed in. Commitment seemed like a box.

THE BASICS

To most people, it’s a soft-sided, flexible box, not a concrete bunker. Sure, we need to anticipate how another person may feel, but that’s not the same as assuming they’ll control us. That is, there is a distinction between acting jointly, as a committed pair—with all the give-and-take that’s entailed—and being constrained by someone whom we know will impose their will irrespective of our feelings.

In Mr. Lauren’s case, it was the difference between Harriet (and his relationship to her) and his mother (with whom he had no adult, committed relationship). He had to accept the difference. If he did, I thought he might stop reacting with such anxiety towards Harriet and, ultimately, stop biting his nails.

Relationships Essential Reads

The funny part was that Mr. Lauren would tell you that he felt entirely committed to Harriet. “I never think about other women,” he said, “and I’d never cheat.” But, of course, commitment is more than just not sleeping around. It’s trust in the other person, the recognition that they want the relationship to work. By the time you get married, this sort of feeling should be well-developed. In Mr. Lauren, it was and it wasn’t. He trusted Harriet to make an effort, but he was still afraid, for reasons that he couldn’t quite articulate, that she might be overbearing. It was irrational, left over from his childhood and the spill-over into his young adulthood. So he’d have to address it.

I suggested that he go through the weeks and months ahead and pay attention to the times when he actually felt controlled. If they didn’t amount to many, then maybe he could begin to adjust his level of fear. Maybe he could relax into the relationship, and feel “committed” in the broadest sense. That is, so much of being committed is feeling that you are. It’s the willingness to stop wondering whether the relationship is for real and to start behaving as though it is. Our partners pick up on how we feel about the relationship, and we don’t want to telegraph concerns that could set them on edge. A cycle of mutually reinforced edginess can be destructive.

At this point in Mr. Lauren’s life, the control mechanism that frightened him was not (or, rather, shouldn’t be) his marriage, but the anxieties that he brings to it. So, as we pursue happiness in relationships, we have to let go of old, imported fears that stand in the way of a relationship based on love.

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